Letters | 21 July 2016

Our terrified youth

Sir: Both Claire Fox’s ‘Generation Snowflake’ and Mary Wakefield’s recent column (What’s to blame for a generation’s desperation?, 16 July) get to the root of the terrified pessimism which (I am told) afflicts much of today’s youth.

At 67, I’m fortunate enough to mix with quite a few thoroughly aware, thoughtful and successful young ’uns who eschew the sanctity of ‘safe spaces’ for the rumbustious joy of boozing, singing, dancing, loving and socialising and generally tackling that fearful world head on in ferocious defiance. As Chesterton so perfectly put it in his reply ‘To Young Pessimists’

Some sneer; some snigger; some simper;
In youth where we laughed, and sang.
And ‘they’ may end with a whimper
But ‘we’ will end with a bang.

I know which side I was on in my youth. Lighten up, kids; there’s always hope. But first, you must go through the scary process of opening your eyes to look for it.
Bob Maddox
Wolverhampton

Not another Joe!

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Ameer Kotecha

Lindt has cheapened itself

Sir: I very much hope that Theresa May does not intend to ‘follow in the footsteps of “Radical Joe”’ (‘She’s another Chamberlain’, 16 July). Chamberlain broke the Liberal party in 1886, when he deserted Gladstone over Irish home rule; and the Conservatives in 1906, when he split the party over his campaign for imperial preference, a policy that none of the dominions supported. He was mercurial, poor at economics and was not a man many found it comfortable to work with.

He was, however, a great businessman, helping drive Nettlefold and Chamberlain (now GKN Limited) to dominance in the screw trade.
Charles Nettlefold
London WC2

How’s that sovereignty?

Sir: Charles Moore makes a valid point in his Notes of 9 July when he says that Parliament needs to improve. If it had been more on the ball, it would never have sanctioned a referendum, the result of which has flown in the face of the will of a significant parliamentary majority.